HomeMy Public PortalAboutPRR 16-2383Renee Basel
From: Chris O'Hare <chrisoharegulfstream@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2016 11:38 AM
To: Bill Thrasher; Rita Taylor; Renee Basel;jrandolph@jonesfoster.com
Subject: Public Record Request - O'Boyle Settlement Demand
Attachments: Scott Morgan Letter to the Editor 11-2-16.docx
Dear Custodian of Records,
request to inspect certain public records' in the custody of the Town of Gulf Stream"
As background to this request 1 call your attention to the recent letter by Mayor Scott Morgan
to the Coastal Star. I have attached a copy of the online publication of this letter for your
reference.
I request to inspect the public record of the settlement demand made outside of any
confidential mediation or confidential settlement discussion or executive session of the Town
Commission that Mayor Scott Morgan references when he disclosed to the readers of
the Coastal Star newspaper and online website that, "O'Boyle's settlement demand, however,
was so outrageously high that the Town concluded it was in its best financial interest to go to
trial and let a judge determine reasonable fees."
While I am not statutorily obligated to explain why I want to inspect these records, I tell you it is for the
purpose of informing myself of the historic and current workings of the Town of Gulf Stream and its
associated entities, vendors, consultants, advisers, contractors and agents. The records I wish to
inspect may also be material to current, anticipated or presently unforeseen legal action. In addition,
inspection of these records may be essential to my ability to make informed comments in an
upcoming public hearing. The production of any and all responsive records is therefore urgent and
must be acted upon in compliance with Florida Statutes and established case law as soon as
possible.
Before making this public record request, I first searched online and in the public records portion of
your agency's website hoping I could locate the public records I seek without having to write you
directly. Unfortunately I cannot find the records I wish to inspect. Therefore I am writing you now and
requesting you make every effort as required by law to produce these public records without delay.
I make this request pursuant to Article 1, Section 24 of the Florida Constitution and Chapter 119 of
the Florida Statutes. I hereby reserve all rights granted to me under the Florida
Constitution and Florida Statutes.
I ask that you take the following action:
• Read this entire request carefully and respond accordingly.
• If you are not the custodian of the public records described herein please determine who that person is and
notify me immediately in order that I may make this request to the appropriate person without delay.
• Reference Florida Statutes and appropriate case law when responding to this record request.
• Do NOT produce any records other than records responsive to this request.
• Identify by name the person or persons responding to this request if that person is not the Custodian of
Records for your agency as required by 119.07(1)(b).
• Respond to this public record request in a singular manner and do not combine this
request with any other public record requests when responding to this request.
• Once you have determined that you do or don't have any records in your
custody responsive to this request, immediately act to obtain any responsive records
that may be in the custody of your contractor(s) or other parties.
• Provide only those records for inspection that do not require extensive use of
information technologies or extensive staff time or both in excess of 15 minutes.
• If records responsive to this request are not presently available but you expect that
they will soon be available I request that you produce the records as soon as they are
available.
I ask you to take note of §119.07(1)(c) Florida Statues and your affirmative obligation to (1)
promptly acknowledge receipt of this public records request and (2) make a good faith effort which
"includes making reasonable efforts to determine from other officers or employees within the agency
whether such a record exists and, if so, the location at which the record can be accessed." I am,
therefore, requesting that you notify every individual and entity in possession of records that may be
responsive to this public records request, including individuals and entities under contract with your
agency, to preserve and produce all responsive records on an immediate basis.
If you contend that any of the records I am seeking, or any portion thereof, are exempt from
inspection or disclosure please cite the specific exemption as required by §119.07(1)(e) of the Florida
Statutes and state in writing and with particularity the basis for your conclusions as required
by §119.07(1)(f) of the Florida Statutes. Produce for my inspection all responsive records and ONLY
redact that portion of the record that you consider exempt. To be clear, if you consider an entire
record to be exempt, produce that record in its entirety with all portions redacted that you consider
exempt. I specifically ask you to do this in order that I may inspect fully redacted records for the
purpose of challenging a particular redaction or establishing a reference for a future request of a
record that is only temporarily exempt, as in the case of a public record that was prepared by an
agency attorney exclusively for litigation and is only exempt from disclosure until the conclusion of the
litigation.
If the public records being sought are maintained by your agency or contactors for your agency, in an
electronic format please produce the records in the original electronic format in which they were
created or received. See §119.01(2)(f), Florida Statutes.
Again I ask that you provide only those records for inspection that do not require extensive use of
information technologies or extensive staff time or both in excess of 15 minutes. Take note
of §119.07(4)(a)3.(d) Florida Statues and if you anticipate that any records exist, the production for
inspection of which will require extensive use of information technologies or extensive staff time or
both in excess of 15 minutes, then please provide those records that can be produced within the first
15 minutes and advise me of the cost you anticipate to be incurred by your agency for the remaining
records prior to incurring this cost. Please do not incur any costs on my behalf without first obtaining
my written authorization to proceed. If you produce only a portion of all existing responsive records,
please tell me that your response includes only a portion of all existing records responsive to this
request.
If you anticipate the need to incur any costs that I would be statutorily required to pay in order to
inspect these public records which would exceed $1.00 please notify me in advance of your incurring
that cost with a written estimate of the total cost. Please be sure to itemize any estimates so as to
indicate the total number of pages and/or records, as well as to distinguish the cost of labor and
materials. Again, please do not incur any costs on my behalf without first obtaining my written
authorization to proceed.
A record that does not exist because of its disposition requires the creation of a disposition record. In
all instances where you determine a record does not exist please determine if the record once existed
and in its replacement provide the disposition record for my inspection.
*The term public records, as used herein, has the same meaning and scope as the definition of Public
records adopted by the Florida Legislature as Statutes Chapter 119.
**The phrase Town of Gulf Stream when used herein refers to the Town in its entirety and all entities
of the Town including all employees, appointees, officials, assignees, counsel and consultants
including Town Manager, Town Clerk, Town Police Chief, Town Commissioners, Town Mayor, Town
Departments, Town Police Officers, Town Employees, Town Staff Attorney, Town Engineer, the law
firm (Jones Foster Johnston & Stubbs P.A.) that claims to be the Town Attorney including all attorney,
partner and employee members of that firm; the Town Counsel of Sweetapple, Broeker &
Varkus including all attorney, partner and employee members of that firm, the Town Counsel
of Richman Greer, P.A. including all attorney, partner and employee members of that firm and any
other entity associated with the Town and subject to public records law.
3
If you do not understand any part of this request or if you need clarification about this request, notify me as
soon as possible so I may further describe or clarify this request. Due to issues of delivery failure and occasional
rejection by your server this email is being sent to multiple recipients to insure prompt delivery.
All responses to this public records request should be made in writing to the following email address:
chrisoharegulfstream@gmail.com
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Letter to the Editor: Gulf Stream confident it's on
the right track
• Posted by Mary Kate Leming on November 2, 2016 at 1:47pm in Island Talk
• View Discussions
In 2014 and early 2015, the town of Gulf Stream found itself under assault from Martin O'Boyle
and Christopher O'Hare, two residents who overwhelmed the town with thousands of public records
requests and dozens of lawsuits. Town Hall became virtually unable to serve Gulf Stream residents.
To defend against this ongoing public records abuse, Gulf Stream brought in legal staff to create a
policy to respond to records requests. In addition, Gulf Stream learned through its RICO
investigation about other Florida abuses committed by the O'Boyle Law Firm and a related O'Boyle
company called Citizens Awareness Foundation, which it added to the town's defenses in the public
records lawsuits.
Since Gulf Stream took these actions, public records requests have dropped from 80 -plus per day
down to several a week. In addition, there has not been another public records lawsuit against Gulf
Stream in over a year and a half. Of the old lawsuits, Gulf Stream won or forced the dismissal of four
of them, and won verdicts or forced the dismissal of six additional non-public records lawsuits.
I cannot overstate how the volume of lawsuits and records requests back in 2013 and 2014
overwhelmed our small staff. The clerks regularly worked nights and weekends; they put off other
town responsibilities; they hunted through old file cabinets and closed land -use folders trying to
respond to requests pouring in almost daily; they called commissioners, board members, past
employees and active and retired police to identify documents and their possible locations. But, the
quantity of these requests was simply not manageable, and some documents were inadvertently
missed.
At no time did staff refuse the legitimacy of O'Boyle's or O'Hare's requests or try to prevent them
from receiving documents. For example, one such request required production of "All photos of
people riding bicycles on N. Ocean Blvd. in the town's public record." Since town records go back to
its founding in 1925, this request necessitated a needle -in -the -haystack search, and for which we
were still sued over a "gotcha" photograph.
A case currently being litigated involves some inadvertently missed documents. Despite a good -
faith effort to locate all requested records, missing records constitute a technical violation of the
public records law, so the town offered to settle the case. O'Boyle's settlement demand, however,
was so outrageously high that the town concluded it was in its best financial interest to go to trial and
let a judge determine reasonable fees. That case was tried recently and there will be a hearing on fees
in the near future.
The town is confident that under Florida law, the court will award fees up to the performance of
the records request and not beyond. This is why the town elected to try this case, as it will any other
case where it appears that O'Boyle built up large attorneys' fees.
Gulf Stream will continue to defend the remaining O'Boyle and O'Hare lawsuits until our two
litigious residents drop the meritless cases and negotiate reasonable settlements in good faith on the
others.
Scott W. Morgan
Mayor, Gulf Stream
TOWN OF GULF STREAM
PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA
Delivered via e-mail
November 7, 2016
Chris O'Hare [mail to: chrisoharegulfstream(dgmail.coml
Re: GS #2383 (O'Boyle Settlement Demand)
I request to inspect the public record of the settlement demand made outside of any confidential
mediation or confidential settlement discussion or executive session of the Town Commission that
Mayor Scott Morgan references when he disclosed to the readers of the Coastal Star newspaper
and online website that, "O'Boyle's settlement demand, however, was so outrageously high that
the Town concluded it was in its best financial interest to go to trial and let a judge determine
reasonablefees."
Dear Chris O'Hare [mail to: chrisoharegulfstream(7a amail.coml:
The Town of Gulf Stream has received your public records requests dated November 5, 2016. The
original public records request can be found at the following link:
http://www2.gulf-stream.org/weblink/O/doc/103449/Pagel.aspx
Please be advised that the Town of Gulf Stream is currently working on a large number of
incoming public records requests. The Town will use its very best efforts to respond to you in a
reasonable amount of time with the appropriate response or an estimated cost to respond.
Sincerely,
R44 -d ROWA41 D
As requested by Rita Taylor
Town Clerk, Custodian of the Records
TOWN OF GULF STREAM
PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA
Delivered via e-mail
November 9, 2016
Chris O'Hare [mail to: chrisoharegulfstream(oDgmail.coml
Re: GS #2383 (O'Boyle Settlement Demand)
I request to inspect the public retard of the settlement demand made outside of any confidential
mediation or confidential settlement discussion or executive session of the Town Commission
that Mayor Scott Morgan references when he disclosed to the readers of the Coastal
Star newspaper and online website that, "O'Boyle's settlement demand, however, was so
outrageously high that the Town concluded it was in its best financial interest to go to trial and
let a judge determine reasonable fees. "
Dear Chris O'Hare [mail to: chrisoharegulfstream(a),gmail.coml:
The Town of Gulf Stream has received your public records request dated November 5, 2016. The
original public records requests can be found at the following links:
htty://www2.gulf-stream.org/weblink/O/doc/i 03449/Pagel .asox
Pursuant to the public records laws, the duty of the Town of Gulf Stream is to provide access to
or copies of public records at a reasonable time in reasonable conditions. The Town of Gulf
Stream is not required to give out information from these records nor give information about
these records. Please be advised that there are no such records. We consider this request closed.
Sincerely,
Rztled Raw" .9"d
As requested by Rita Taylor
Town Clerk, Custodian of the Records
Renee Basel
From: Chris O'Hare <chrisoharegulfstream@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 9, 2016 6:05 PM
To: Renee Basel; Bill Thrasher, Rita Taylor
Subject: Fwd: GS #2383 (O'Boyle Settlement Demand)
Attachments: GS #2383 (O'Boyle Settlement Demand)-production.nsr.pdf
Dear Custodian of Records,
I am writing you regarding your recent response to my record request which you have labeled as GS #2383
(O'Boyle Settlement Demand). You write in part:
The Town of Gulf Stream is not required to give out information from these records nor give
information about these records.
I am confused by this response. I did not ask you to give me any information from these records; nor did I ask
you to give me any information about these records. I simply described the records I requested to inspect.
Specifically I ask to inspect:
the public record of the settlement demand made outside of any confidential mediation or confidential
settlement discussion or executive session of the Town Commission that Mayor Scott Morgan
references when he disclosed to the readers of the Coastal Star newspaper and online website that,
"O'Boyle's settlement demand, however, was so outrageously high that the Town concluded it was in
its best financial interest to go to trial and let a judge determine reasonable fees. "
You further write:
Please be advised that there are no such records. We consider this request closed.
Respectfully, I tell you that simply can't be. Are you absolutely sure there is no responsive record outside of any
confidential mediation or confidential settlement discussion or executive session of the Town Commission?
Could you please check again.
Sincerely,
Chris O'Hare
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Renee Basel <RBasel(cgulf-stream.org>
Date: Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 3:58 PM
Subject: GS #2383 (O'Boyle Settlement Demand)
To: Chris O'Hare <chrisoharegulfstream(agmail.com>